Estate Planning and Probate Guidance for Union County

Planning ahead or handling an existing matter?

Planning ahead means deciding what instructions and arrangements you want documented. Depending on your goals, planning may involve a will, a revocable or irrevocable trust, financial or healthcare powers of attorney, or advance healthcare directives. These documents have distinct purposes: record the documents you have, the people named and the question you want to resolve about each. Naming one person in one document does not, by itself, explain every role or decision.

Administration is different. It concerns putting an existing plan or legal matter into effect, or addressing an estate, distribution, guardianship, or conservatorship matter. If there are already case documents, begin with those rather than assuming a planning checklist answers the procedural question.

Union County’s case-file distinction

The Union County Clerk and Master handles both Chancery and Probate case files. The office’s listed matters include estates, distributions, conservatorships, and guardianships. That is a useful starting point when you are trying to identify where case-file information is handled, but a general list does not establish who may act, which procedure applies, or what should happen next.

Use the actual case documents to identify the matter. Do not infer the right office, authority, or process from a family description or from the fact that a matter involves an estate. The document’s title, parties, and stated case information are more useful starting points for clarifying the issue.

A document-to-office preparation map

For a planning conversation, gather the documents you want reviewed and mark what you are trying to decide: instructions in a will, trust terms, who should serve in a particular role, or healthcare and financial decision-making arrangements. Record any beneficiary-designation or information-access question separately, so it can be considered alongside your other planning documents.

For an existing matter, gather the notices, orders, petitions, accountings, or other case papers you have. Note any names and case identifiers appearing on them, and write down what remains unclear. The Clerk and Master handles the county’s Chancery and Probate case files; those papers can help distinguish a case-file question from a request to create or revise a future plan.

• Planning preparation: current wills, trust documents, powers of attorney, healthcare directives, and a short list of changes or questions.
• Existing-matter preparation: available case documents, relevant correspondence, names shown on the papers, and the specific action or explanation you are seeking.

Questions to resolve before the next step

Identify whether your immediate need is to create or revise instructions, understand an existing case document, or address administration. Then ask which document governs the issue, what role each named person has, and whether there is an active case whose papers should guide the discussion. For an administration question, clarify what the documents say before drawing conclusions about who may act or which procedure applies.

The firm offers estate-planning and administration services, including wills, trusts, powers of attorney, advance healthcare directives, probate administration, trust administration, and guardianship and conservatorship services. The appropriate service depends on the matter and the documents involved—not simply on the community where you live.